A New Book of History

With more than 900 entries, the newly published Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia marks the consolidation of the notable biographies into a single, diverse unit. And with more than 600 editors, contributors and advisers, it also documents the existence of a community of women and men vigorously involved in exploring the lives of Jewish women.

Edited by professors Paula Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore and published by Routledge (1,500 pp., $250), the encyclopedia includes entries on Zionist leaders, publishers, philanthropists, labor activists, cowgirls, sports figures and many others. There’s a lot of original research in each nugget of an entry. LILITH, of course, is included in an entry by Ann Lapidus Lemer.

“We understood that knowledge empowers,” wrote the editors, “and we sought to give this and coming generations of women the tools to participate in designing their future.”